KurtS mortally wounds a rat with his 44 caliber black powder pistol

I enjoyed changing your halloween lights and satellite pictures and I saw your rat hunting saga, and thought I'd share a couple of stories of mine.

The first one was when I was living alone in a duplex on Sunshine Avenue - no joke, that's where I lived. I discovered I had a visitor because I heard chewing noises in my under sink cabinets. I happened to open the left side cabinet door when I investigated, and the rat was on the right side.

The hole it had chewed was on the left side bottom, so I saw the rat and the hole at the same time when the rat ran across the bottom of the cabinet and went through the hole. I also noticed that the rat had only chewed a hole big enough to squeeze through, and it actually took a second or two for it to make it, and I had the beginnings of a plan.

I had a 44 caliber black powder pistol that I had put together from a kit, a navy revolver. It was actually a pretty nice firearm, and it would shoot with more accuracy than my girlfriend's 357 mag redhawk. I bought some special wads made for loading shot into ball weapons, which looked more than anything else like miniature diaphragms made of hard plastic.

The idea was to load the powder, a wad, the shot and another wad, and it actually worked pretty well for close range, but since the barrel rifling spun the shot, the pattern resembled a doughnut from anything but shoot from the hip range. I used 7 1/2 shot from my shotgun reloading supplies, which I thought would be adequate for a rat, though it is bird shot.

So I cleaned the gun, loaded a chamber and waited. Yep, that's right, I only loaded one chamber. When the rat made its appearance, I knew to wait a little, because the macaroni bag it had opened was on the upper shelf, and I wanted to give myself as much time to shoot as I could.

When I felt the time was right I cocked my pistol, opened the left cabinet door and stepped back into a nice two handed crouched position. The rat actually peeked around the door stile from the upper shelf and looked at me for a second or two and then disappeared. When it ran across the cabinet bottom and went to go through the hole, its rear went up in the air and paused just like it had before, and I fired.

The kitchen was instantly full of blue smoke, the rat squealed, and then went limp. Remember when I said I only loaded one chamber? Well, here was where I discovered my second mistake. I realized pretty quickly that I wasn't sure that the rat was dead, and I needed something to secure the carcass just in case. Work gloves or welding gloves would have been perfect, and I had both, but not right there, and then the rat started moving again.

That was when I realized that even loading a few chambers would have at least bought me more time, if not satisfaction. Before I could do anything besides grabbing the bloody carcass with my bare hands, which I was not about to do, the rat was able to go through the hole before finding a nice quiet place to die, somewhere in the framing of the apartment.

I removed the whole sink base trying to find it, but it was no use, and I had to put up with the smell for months.

I guess preparation is key. The pistol worked great. If I had to do it again I would still use it, fully loaded and with a pair of heavy gloves handy.


Preperation is key and yes, you want to have at least a second shot (and preferably more) to take down those pesky critters.


Continue on to read about how KurtS (armed only with a CO2 BB Gun) bravely battles a frenzied rat - only one shall survive.